Assisted suicide requests may signal other problems
Physicians need to address the complex issue of assisted suicide more creatively than they have in the past, suggests Timothy Quill, MD, professor of medicine and psychiatry at the University of Rochester (NY) School of Medi-cine. Quill’s suggestions were presented at the American Academy of Family Physicians’ annual scientific meeting held last September in Chicago.
When a critically ill patient requests assistance with suicide, Quill advises physicians to view this as a cry for help. Frequently, he adds, the request for assisted suicide is not actually a request to die; it may signal a patient who is in pain, has become depressed, or is having a personal crisis.
Fear impedes communication
In such cases, physicians should consider whether the patient is receiving appropriate hospice care and whether the patient is competent to make the decision. Appropriate use of pain medication is another uncertain area among physicians, he adds.
Frank discussions about the subject rarely occur because physicians fear that even discussing such matters puts them in dangerous legal terrain, Quill points out. Physicians must decide according to their own values if they choose to assist a patient in carrying out the request, he says. t
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